VMware ThinApp Blog

Ever stop and wish that THINREG would search all subfolders and register apps in them? Rest assured, it is a feature request which has been input to our product development team.

Here's an example/template of a script which can be used within a ThinApp project to start and stop a service (and any dependent services) which doesn't have to be running unless the application is running.

One might ask, "I thought ThinApp automatically started and stopped captured services?"

It's true that ThinApp will automatically start services and stop them. But what about those applications that need a number of services started and in a specific order? Or maybe you only need those services running when a specific "thing" happens (i.e. a specific process/application starts). That's where a scripted solution comes into play very nicely with ThinApp.

These are instructions on how to script in validation logic to your ThinApp package using VBS scripts - since virtually, whatever you can script, you can ThinApp.

It's not uncommon to use a local copy of Internet Explorer (IE) as a way to present virtual applications to the desktop. The most common example is a virtual package of Java that is then launched with the local Internet Explorer. As such, this normally works without any modification. However, in a Vista environment, you can run into a unique circumstance.

Recently, I've been asked on how one would use THINREG in a login script to auto-register network based ThinApp packaged applications to a workstation. While this question was asked in the context of VDI workstations, it could very easily be used outside a VDI implementation (on physical workstations attached to a network) as well.

If you have need for special functions or processes which need to occur prior to or during the execution of your ThinApp packaged application, using a script within your ThinApp packaged application can accomplish these tasks based upon a nearly infinite amount of validation logic already available within Windows VBS scripts.

Here is a simple VBS Script template for use with any ThinApp packaged application. This script template contains simple variable settings and the four callback functions as well as some minor examples.